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The film begins with the following voice-over narration by actor Levon Helm: “There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, 750 miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier. Then they built a small plane, the X-1, to try and break the sound barrier, and men came to the high desert of California to ride it. They were called test pilots, and no one knew their names.” The picture ends with Levon Helm declaring: “The Mercury program was over. Four years later, astronaut Gus Grissom was killed along with astronauts White and Chaffee when fire swept through their Apollo capsule. But on that glorious day in May 1963, Gordo Cooper went higher, farther, and faster than any other American. Twenty-two complete orbits around the world. He was the last American ever to go into space alone. And for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.”
On 16 Oct 1979, DV announced that United Artists (UA) had acquired screen rights to Tom Wolfe’s best-selling novel The Right Stuff (New York, 1979), and a 16 Jan 1980 Var news item added that the studio paid approximately $500,000 for the property. The next day, a 17 Jan 1980 DV ...MoreLess

At Muroc Air Force Base in 1940s California, test pilots risk their lives to set a new record for speed, and frequent a rugged bar called Happy Desert Riding Club. There, pilot “Slick” Goodlin brags he can break the sound barrier for $150,000, but war hero Chuck Yeager volunteers to perform the mission at no added cost to his meager salary. The night before his flight, Yeager playfully chases his wife, Glennis, through the desert on horseback and breaks a rib, but he reports to duty in the morning, and his friend, Jack Ridley, rigs the X-1 rocket hatch with a broken broom handle to accommodate for Yeager’s injury. On 14 October 1947, Yeager becomes the first man to break the sound barrier. Although the flight is deemed “top secret” by the U.S. government, rumors spread about Yeager, who becomes known as “the fastest man alive,” and pilots flock to California’s Mojave Desert, hoping to top Yeager’s ongoing streak of record-breaking speeds. By 1952, Muroc is renamed “Edwards Air Force Base” and becomes home to the best pilots in the world, including Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, Donald “Deke” Slayton, and Virgil “Gus” Grissom. As the men compete for the most dangerous missions, their wives worry about becoming widows. In 1957, the Soviet Union launches “Sputnik,” becoming the first country to operate a global satellite in outer space, and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson fears Russia has gained an upper hand in the Cold War. Eager to overshadow “Sputnik” and assert America’s world-dominance, Johnson advises a committee to endorse a new space program, “Project Mercury,” which will launch human-piloted rockets into space. ...
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At Muroc Air Force Base in 1940s California, test pilots risk their lives to set a new record for speed, and frequent a rugged bar called Happy Desert Riding Club. There, pilot “Slick” Goodlin brags he can break the sound barrier for $150,000, but war hero Chuck Yeager volunteers to perform the mission at no added cost to his meager salary. The night before his flight, Yeager playfully chases his wife, Glennis, through the desert on horseback and breaks a rib, but he reports to duty in the morning, and his friend, Jack Ridley, rigs the X-1 rocket hatch with a broken broom handle to accommodate for Yeager’s injury. On 14 October 1947, Yeager becomes the first man to break the sound barrier. Although the flight is deemed “top secret” by the U.S. government, rumors spread about Yeager, who becomes known as “the fastest man alive,” and pilots flock to California’s Mojave Desert, hoping to top Yeager’s ongoing streak of record-breaking speeds. By 1952, Muroc is renamed “Edwards Air Force Base” and becomes home to the best pilots in the world, including Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, Donald “Deke” Slayton, and Virgil “Gus” Grissom. As the men compete for the most dangerous missions, their wives worry about becoming widows. In 1957, the Soviet Union launches “Sputnik,” becoming the first country to operate a global satellite in outer space, and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson fears Russia has gained an upper hand in the Cold War. Eager to overshadow “Sputnik” and assert America’s world-dominance, Johnson advises a committee to endorse a new space program, “Project Mercury,” which will launch human-piloted rockets into space. Over time, pilots are subjected to grueling physical and psychological tests to prove they have “the right stuff,” and on 9 April 1959, the newly-established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announces the “Mercury Seven” astronauts. Edwards Air Force Base pilots Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, Donald “Deke” Slayton, and Virgil “Gus” Grissom are joined by Marine John Glenn and Navy officers Alan Shepard, Scott Carpenter, and Walter “Wally” Schirra. Back at the Happy Desert Riding Club, pilots Jack Ridley and Chuck Yeager listen to a radio broadcast of the NASA press conference, disgruntled that Yeager was eliminated from the selection due to his lack of higher education. Yeager remains determined to push the limits of aeronautical engineering, even though his celebrity has been eclipsed by the Mercury Seven. Meanwhile, the new astronauts are promoted by the media as Cold War heroes and are relocated to Cape Canaveral, Florida. However, their missions are delayed by a series of failed, unmanned test launches, and NASA decides to replace the pilots with a chimpanzee for the first flight. Resenting the snub, the Mercury Seven band together to prove the merits of their education, insisting that pilots are not interchangeable with primates. The men also leverage their popularity in the press, threatening to smear NASA unless its engineers comply with their demands for a rocket capsule window and escape hatch. Still, NASA launches a chimpanzee into space on 31 January 1961, and the Soviets put a man in space two months later. With new urgency to compete with Russia, the U.S. launches a rocket piloted by Alan Shepard on 5 May 1961, and his successful mission is celebrated by President Kennedy, who declares that Project Mercury is evidence of America’s political and technological mastery. On 21 July 1961, Gus Grissom makes the next Mercury flight, but the capsule hatch prematurely blows open when he lands in the ocean. Despite Grissom’s protests, he is blamed for panicking inside the capsule, triggering the hatch, and causing the aircraft to sink. Grissom fails to receive the heroic homecoming of his predecessor, and his wife, Betty, is devastated. As Betty cries about the sacrifices she and the other Mercury Seven wives make to accommodate for their husbands’ life-threatening careers, news reporters arrive to announce that the government has changed its tack, and Grissom is being heralded as a hero, after all. Back at Edwards Air Force Base, Chuck Yeager watches the ensuing television news coverage with his fellow pilot, Jack Ridley, who suggests President Kennedy is glorifying Grissom to manipulate the media, and divert attention away from the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) failed invasion of Cuba. When Ridley speculates that Grissom is responsible for the sunken capsule, Yeager insists the astronaut should be commended, regardless of the mission’s outcome. Sometime later, the Happy Desert Riding Club is destroyed in a fire, taking with it a memorial wall of photographs that honored unknown test pilots who died in the line of duty. Back in Cape Canaveral, John Glenn is launched into space for the world’s first orbital mission on 20 February 1962. During the flight, ground control is alerted to a failure in the spacecraft’s heat shield, indicating that the capsule will burn up during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, and the mission is cut short. Although Alan Shepard wants to warn his friend, NASA orders him to remain mum, and John Glenn is dazzled by sparks of light that surround the capsule. As Glenn returns to Earth, consumed in flames, his fellow astronauts presume they have lost their friend, but he arrives safely and is honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City. With Project Mercury at the height of its success, the astronauts are relocated to a new space center in Houston, Texas, where Lyndon B. Johnson welcomes them with a stadium celebration. There, Gordo Cooper receives news that he will be the final Mercury Seven astronaut to go into space, and he plans to outshine his predecessors. Meanwhile, back at Edwards Air Force Base, Yeager is tired of being overshadowed by the Mercury astronauts. Eager to set a new record, Yeager sneaks into a state-of-the-art, supersonic NF-104 airplane and pilots the aircraft toward space. However, he loses control of the plane and free falls back to Earth. As Yeager parachutes to the ground, he is reunited with his friend, Jack Ridley, who is astounded by Yeager’s unsung courage. On 15 May 1963, Gordo Cooper finally proves he has “the right stuff,” orbiting Earth twenty-two times, completing Project Mercury, and showing the world that the U.S. is empowered by bravery, collaboration, and patriotism.
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Seventy-year-old newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane dies in his palatial Florida home, Xanadu, after uttering the single word “Rosebud.” While watching a newsreel summarizing the years during which Kane ... >>

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